René van den Bosch and Michael van Woerden are guest lecturers at the first edition of the Risk & Compliance Summer School 2023 in Amsterdam dated 6 and 7 July 2023. The theme is ‘Compliance Management and Regaining Trust’. Sign up now! https://www.riskcompliance.biz/education/risk-compliance-summer-school-2023-compliance-management-and-regaining-trust/
Essay by Michael van Woerden (DeComplianceMonitor), published in TvCo 2022 – 2 (April 2022). Good compliance is good for business. A culture of integrity, embedded in the corporate strategy and supported by a code of conduct as ‘living document’ is crucial to protect trust by customers, governments, and other key stakeholders of the organization. Many companies adapt their strategies to align with the UN Agenda 2030 for sustainable development. However, resulting ethics and compliance commitments will fade if they are not followed by measurable goals and actions. Professor Sandra J. Sucher (Harvard Business School) explains that trust can only endure if it is based on both ‘cognitive trust’ (expertise and reliability) and ‘affective trust’ (motives and actions).3 She calls upon meaningful transparency as a way to hold management accountable for its commitments towards stakeholders of the company. In this essay, it is argued that governments should act as ‘gatekeeper’ for companies that tender for important governmental projects. By separating the wheat from the chaff, damaging compliance shortcomings and the related economic and social costs can be avoided and companies are stimulated to protect integrity and trust as pillars of prosperity. A more active role by the government is important in large projects: it would stimulate and reward self-cleaning initiatives by companies, their suppliers and other business partners. Similarly, enforcement agencies, supervisory authorities, and unilateral organizations such as the World Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Bank for Construction and Development (EBCD) can set the tone as regards compliance by encouraging an integrated approach on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters.
During the ICC Week of Integrity (1-9 December 2021), the fourth edition of the ICC’s Integrity Book was published: ‘Integrity & Trust – Pillars of Prosperity‘. A valuable source of inspiration for business management, policy makers, and other professionals that are involved in keeping the business clean and future proof. Michael van Woerden (DeComplianceMonitor) is co-author. In his essay ‘Doing the right thing – how governments can help‘ he calls upon governments to make better use of their purchasing power to stimulate the maintenance of comprehensive corporate compliance programmes by imposing related conditions as part of public procurement. The book can be downloaded free of charge and is highly recommended.
Lisa Miller, Head of the World Bank Integrity Compliance Office, explains. Listen to the podcast.
Op November 5th, 2020 the fourth Evaluation Report the Netherlands on implementation of the OECD Convention against foreign bribery has been published. The OECD Report highlights the increasing efforts to combat bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions. However, there are concerns about the low number of criminal prosecutions and settlements in the Netherlands. A number of recommendations are provided for further improvement.
De op 4 september 2020 in werking getreden nieuwe Aanwijzing hoge transacties wordt verwelkomd. Een punt van zorg is de onduidelijkheid over de rol en werkwijze van de commissie die moet toetsen of voorgenomen hoge schikkingen voldoen aan de gestelde eisen zolang nog niet voorzien is in bij wet geregelde rechterlijke toetsing van voorgenomen hoge schikkingen. In het OESO rapport wordt erop aangedrongen vaart te maken met deze wettelijke regeling en daarbij:
Ook andere aspecten worden belicht in het OESO rapport, zoals de werking van het regime ter bescherming van klokkenluiders en de reikwijdte van legal privilege in Nederland. Het rapport wordt binnenkort aangeboden aan de Tweede Kamer en is te raadplegen via de OECD website.
The Dutch Minister of Justice and Security has announced plans to amend the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure in response to questions raised by parliament about substantial or extraordinary “transactions”. Transactions are payments agreed between the public prosecutor and a suspect in lieu of criminal prosecution. The plans amend the existing rules on substantial transactions and introduce a process of judicial review. The Minister also stated that the Public Prosecution Service’s instructions on these types of transactions should be aligned with the current practice of transparency. He stated that he will involve the Public Prosecution Service and the Council for the Judiciary to draw up the rules in further detail. Click here to read more.
Source: DeBrauwBlackstoneWestbroek, 14 February 2019
US government enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 2018 remained robust, and the trend of increasing multi-jurisdictional cooperation and enforcement continued throughout the year. In the United States, the 33 combined individual and corporate FCPA enforcement actions concluded by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018 were largely consistent with the average number of enforcement actions brought over the last seven years. The US $2.91 billion in monetary sanctions levied in corporate FCPA enforcement matters in 2018 reached a record high, although the chart-topping $1.78 billion penalty imposed as part of the Petrobras settlement accounts for more than half of this amount. Outside the United States, a number of countries continue to substantially enhance the legal and regulatory structure for international anti-corruption enforcement, including by passing legislation establishing corporate liability for certain types of bribery offenses and authorizing prosecutors to enter deferred prosecution agreements or other negotiated resolutions with companies accused of bribery. Click here to download the full report.
Source: Steptoe – 28 February 2019.
Transparency International’s 2018 Progress Report is an independent assessment of the enforcement of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention, which requires parties to criminalise bribery of foreign public officials and introduce related measures.
This twelfth such report also assesses enforcement in China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, India and Singapore, which are not parties to the OECD Convention but are major exporters, accounting for 18 per cent of world exports. The report has been prepared by Transparency International, with contributions from our national chapters and experts in 41 OECD Convention countries, as well as in China, Hong Kong SAR, India and Singapore. Click here to download the report.
Source: Transparency International, 12 September 2018